Locked out: St. Mary Health Clinic continues dispute with basilica
WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — “We weren’t told this was coming; they were gonna do it; they locked the doors.”
Months ago, the St. Mary Health Center was asked to leave the building it called home for almost 30 years.
In April, the Basilica of Saint Mary sent a letter to the health center, giving them 60 days to vacate because the basilica said it needed to expand St. Mary Catholic School.
The matter was taken to the courts. Saint Mary Health Clinic’s executive director, Laura Vinson, claims the basilica recently changed the locks without warning or justification and issued the clinic a trespass notice.
However, according to her, that is not what the court has ruled.
“We went to small claims court. They claim the judge said that we were guests here. The order was very specific. The eviction notice that they issued to us was dismissed.”
No one with the church would speak on camera. Instead, they referred us to a statement on their website, which in part reads:
“The clinic’s operators have repeatedly refused to cooperate on a timeline for vacating the premises by the end of the calendar year. The court has told us that the dental clinic is a guest and that our only remedy is to give the clinic a trespass notice.”
Vinson disputes this statement.
“It was never a court order. There is no court order in any of these documents that states that they have the right to come over here and throw us out. That’s something that they decided to do that was very aggressive. Now they are the owners of the building; we don’t pay rent—we never have. We’ve been here for thirty years as a ministry of the church. We have a new priest who has been here for three years, and for three years, he doesn’t want to acknowledge the clinic. Okay, well, give us the time we need to move.”
We have reached out to Vinson’s attorney to gain some clarity on the legality behind this situation but have not yet heard back at this time.
To read the church’s statement in its entirety, click here.
